Hope and Glory: Rugby League in Thatcher’s Britain
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“A timely book… Broxton is a superb and sympathetic chronicler of how this happened.” –Patrick Kidd, The Times
Hope and Glory recreates the extraordinary era of Thatcherite Britain with the dramatic tension of a novel, revealing it as a critical moment in rugby league history when despite losing everything, anything seemed possible.
Rugby league should never have survived Thatcher’s Britain. As the sport of the working class, the expectation was that rugby league would suffer the same fate as the textile mills, factories and coal mines that once surrounded it. Having declined in the 1970s, the sport appeared to be at the point of no return in 1982, when the Australian team destroyed any remaining illusions of ‘British exceptionalism’.
But as it often does, rugby league found a way to turn itself around. From the pit villages which fought industrial decline to the players who ushered in the new professional era, the 1980s was the decade when rugby league finally came of age. By the 1990s, there was an optimism that it could even replace football as the global game for the 21st century.
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Additional information
| Publisher | First Edition (7 Aug. 2023), Pitch Publishing Ltd |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 352 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1801504555 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1801504553 |
| Dimensions | 16.2 x 3.2 x 24 cm |
by I. Horrocks
A great read, hard to believe that RL once had pretentions to match football and did the big stuff – tests at Wembley, posters at tube stations, well known players, serious friends amongst personalities. The game would never be the same after the 95 Cup Final, yet it has stagnated and has had terrible leadership. I lived through these times and enjoyed every monute of the book, yet younger people and those without an RL background will find it a fascinating topic.
by David Concannon
The 1980s was the time that I was introduced to Rugby League and the period up to the advent of Super League was my golden era, despite my team’s rivals mopping up all of the honours, so any book about these times was always going to be one that I’d buy.
However, I know all of the winners, losers, scorers, and stories of the games, and so I didn’t need that. And, indeed, that’s not what you get.
This book is a social commentary. It’s a story of the clubs, the communities, the supporters, the players, and the characters involved in the game. Most clubs and towns get their turn. You get a real feel for the game and its struggles, how it and its participants reinvented themselves, and how the game brought itself back from the precipice.
Normally, I’m a poor reader, If I’m not engaged. I can read a page of a book and then immediately do it again, not realising that I’ve just read the page in question. None of it goes in. However, in this case, it all soaked in. I was engrossed from start to finish.
Those who are not of a Labour persuasion may be put off by the assumed narrative and by the fact that the author is a Labour man. However, don’t be. Even the emotion of the miner’s strike is written without bias or an attempt to get the reader to take sides.
I’ve been reading books on this sport for 35 years, but this one really is the gold standard.
by Amazon Customer
A captivating read, chronicling the ebbs and flows of a sport I knew little about until now. Whilst this book is set firmly in the past, Broxton artfully incorporates many of today’s societal issues, from Windrush to gender inequality. This is far more than a book about rugby league, it’s a social commentary that weeves politics, sport and society seemlessly together.
by michael corleone
This book intelligently demonstrates the transformations within Rugby league in the 1980’s to mid 90’s, through the prism of the vast political changes also occurring within the era.
Personal highlights include the linkage between the creation of the new super league and Labour’s famous clause four moment. Also the social commentary regarding Featherstone’s challenge cup success, against the backdrop of economic deprivation, industrial instability and high unemployment. Furthermore, the book perfectly captures the optimism that briefly existed for Rugby league to become both the nations favourite game and a truly global sport.
by Ruth Kirk
I thought I knew RL. This was an education and a must read for all RL fans. Though it may upset you as to how far the sport has fallen.
by David
Read this on holiday as someone who had drifted away from RL in the 80s as I preferred soccer. I found this book a fountain of knowledge about the game during this period. Pleases to say I have returned to the RL family from the naughties.
by natalia toubari
I picked up this book as my boyfriend is a huge rugby league supporter and I am getting interested in the sport.
I found this an incredible book for someone who is not familiar with the history of the sport and the history of the north in the 1980s.
A great book and I would highly recommend to any rugby league fans.
by Michael Dwyer
Author Anthony Broxton has excelled in illuminating some of rugby leagues most pivotal years. It is a sports book, a history book and a salutary lesson for those that govern in sports today. He doesn’t just prick some myths surrounding the game and society in that era, he blows them up. A rugby league fan could be left with a bitter taste in their mouth but would be missing the way forward gleaned from a forensic examination of the past .